1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a driving support apparatus that applies an automatic brake, which is independent of a driver's brake operation, to a three-dimensional object in front of a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
There have recently been proposed various driving support apparatuses for a vehicle for avoiding collision, and have been put to practical use. Such a driving support apparatus performs an automatic brake control, in which an automatic brake that is independent of a driver's brake operation is applied, when there is high possibility of collision of the vehicle against an obstacle such as another vehicle.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2010-260504 describes a technique in the driving support apparatus of this type. In this technique, by setting such that a support operation for avoiding a contact is easy to be operated executed) to hasten an operation timing of an automatic brake control when a width of a connection road connected to a road on which a vehicle runs is equal to or lower than a predetermined threshold value and the driver has poor visibility near the connection road, the driver can be prevented from being irritated about the start of the support operation for avoiding the contact and the support operation for avoiding the contact can be started quickly at an appropriate timing.
In the driving support apparatus described above, the driver might determine from his/her sense that the collision against the obstacle can be avoided even if the automatic brake control is executed because it is determined that the possibility of the collision against the obstacle is high under control.
In order to solve this problem, for example, it may be determined that the driver intends to positively increase speed when an acceleration opening degree is equal to or higher than a set threshold value and the automatic brake control may be canceled to match the control and the driver's feeling.
However, when the automatic brake control is executed in a state in which an accelerator pedal is fully depressed, such as in the case where the vehicle runs on a climbing lane, it may be difficult to correctly determine the driver's intention of canceling the automatic brake control based on the accelerator opening degree. On the other hand, when the threshold value of the accelerator opening degree for canceling the automatic brake control is set to be high, the effectiveness of determining the cancel of the automatic brake control may be poor.